


Pearlified 8XM

by teryaki



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Brainwashing, F/F, Loss of Identity, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 19:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17007780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teryaki/pseuds/teryaki
Summary: Captured by Homeworld, Amethyst is put to a new purpose.





	Pearlified 8XM

It was the right decision. She knew it, they knew it. Amethyst didn't regret her decision for a moment. Her friends were safe, and one of Yellow Diamond's largest battlecruisers was floating stricken in space with a reactor core sporting an Amethyst-sized hole.

She had to laugh. She shouldn't have even survived that explosion. But here she was, months later, on trial on the angry space giraffe's nearest colony.

What else could she do but mock them at every turn? Constantly shapeshifting into the prosecuting zircon, or the emerald presiding. The topaz guards would slap her down each time, try to torture her into silence with those disrupters... but it was pointless, she'd already won. They knew that, and they hated her for it.

"This court is satisfied that the accused is beyond ANY doubt," the emerald glared at her "not only guilty, but absolutely insufferable in her rebellion against her betters."

"YAWN!!!" Amy yelled loudly before being struck to the floor by the guard to her left.

"HOWEVER..." the judge continued, "let it never be said that the perfect justice of the diamonds is a justice devoid of mercy or concern. We recognize that this amethyst was left behind on a hostile, primitive planet, with only savage natives and TRAITORS to shape her."

Amethyst glared and yelled. "ROSE QUARTZ WAS TWICE THE GEM YOU'LL EVER BE! AUGH!!!" She yelped in pain as a disrupter was jabbed deep into her physical form.

"As such..." The emerald rose, and the rest of the court, save Amethyst, followed. "The accused will be reprocessed and allowed to return to a productive life in service to the Diamonds. Sentence will be carried out immediately. This court is now adjourned."

 

Amethyst was, perhaps for the first time, lost for words. She couldn't even manage a final shout of defiance as she pulled inside a topaz fusion and carried from the courtroom. Reprocessed? What even was that? She was supposed to get shattered! That's what Homeworld DOES to gems they don't like! She could only ponder her fate as she was carried to a warp pad, only her eyes and hair protruding from the imprisoning fusion.

Where were they taking her? It was a short trip in any case, the warp pad quickly depositing them in a dark room. Glowing white pods lined the walls, and large tanks of milky liquid formed a central pillar. Will little fanfare the topazes unfused, grabbing Amethyst by the arms and dragging her toward an open pod.

"HEY! Let me go you big yellow jerks!" Amy hissed.

The topazes smiled at each other a moment, before obliging the overcooked quartz, throwing her violently into the pod's maw. It shut quickly, locking her inside as she groaned in pain. She could hardly react as robotic shackles grabbed her wrists and ankles. She grunted and tried to struggle, blasting the grinning topazes with every obscenity she could muster, hardly noticing as a sharp hammer lowered from the top of the pod. Her yelling stopped when she heard a crack. And looked down. At the hammer that had just put an agonizingly deep crack through her gem.

"Crapbaskets..." was all she could muster before she poofed.

The machine bubbled her instantly, holding her gem floating in the pod. The topazes wandered off as the machine began its work in earnest. The tanks and pipes hummed to life, as the pod began to fill with the milky liquid. The bubble faded as the pod filled, leaving the crystal gem to float, as the fluid began seeping deep into the crack in her gem, and then penetrating deeper into her being…

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Wake up, 8XM."

Amethyst groaned. Her head throbbed as she struggled to open her eyes.

She wasn’t in the pod, as far as she could tell. Looking around, in fact, it didn’t look like she was anywhere… just some empty, white void as far as she could see.

Well, save for one thing.

"Hello 8XM." A pearl was standing in front of her. Slim, delicate, graceful, like all of her kind. But this one… Amy was immediately unsettled. This pearl had her colors, her purples and lavenders. This pearl had her wild, curly hair, falling over her left eye, and hangin just below her tush. She even wore a perversion of Amethyst’s clothes: her off-the-shoulder dress looking like it had been painted onto the pearl’s torso, save for where it flaired at the shoulders and waist into delicate transparent whisps of loose material.

"Wha… who the heck are you?" The earthling glared accusingly as the strange pearl smiled.

"Who am I? Well, I’m you, I suppose is the most direct answer!"

"Hah, you WISH." the quartz grumbled.

"Hmm... Well, to be more correct, I’m the you you’re going to be." She leant down and pressed a finger to Amethyst’s lips before the rebel gem could interrupt. "I know, that sounds scary, right? A strange pearl saying you’re going to turn into her? You’re trying to be so brave, but I frighten you." She stared straight into Amy’s eyes. "Yes, I know you are. I can feel it."

Amethyst shivered at that. And try as she might, she found she couldn’t interrupt now. The finger left her mouth, and opened to scream obscenities and threats... yet, no words could be found. And so she watched a growing existential terror as the pearl continued.

"Do you remember the pod?" the pearl asked as she sat cross-legged in front of Amy.

Amethyst felt a gentle calmness wash over her. Not crushing, but enough to lift from from her lying position to find herself mirroring the pearl’s posture. "I guess so?"

The pearl nodded sagely. "Your gem was cracked so that I could be introduced. I’m inside of you 8XM, and you are inside of me."

Amethyst stared in confusion. "But... but why? I thought I was going to be shattered. This doesn’t make any sense."

The pearl leaned forward and took Amy’s hand in hers tenderly. "You’re not being punished, 8XM. You’re being given a gift."

Amethyst gave a skeptical look.

"You are being given a second chance, 8XM. An entirely new life. The kind of life you should have been given in the first place. You were left behind, 8XM. I know how hard that was for you, to emerge alone, without guidance. You were so alone, so frightened."

"I wasn’t that scared..." Amethyst protested, but even as those words left her mouth, they felt less true, somehow. She winced and shook her head, something didn’t feel right at all.

"Yes, yes you were. That’s why you bonded with the only gems you could find. You didn’t know they were murderers and traitors. What you did wasn’t your fault."

The pearl’s words were insidious, as though each statement was reaching inside Amy’s mind and scooping out a piece of herself. "No... no, they’re my friends, I love them!" she protested, tears beginning to pool as each loose thread of her mind was tugged.

"They couldn’t give you what you needed, though, could they? You needed order, and they never gave that to you... allowed you to run feral, to live in filth... you had to try to make your own purpose, because they’d taken away everything that was supposed to give you your place in life."

"N-no… that’s not true…"

The pearl scooted around behind Amethyst, wrapping her arms around the overcooked quartz in a protective embrace, nuzzling softly into her hair. "All gems need a purpose, 8XM... we exist to serve, it’s the only reason we’re made."

"I... I…" Amethyst choked out, staring up in absolute desperation as she tried to cling to unravelling memories. All the good times with Rose, with Pearl, with Garnet, and with Steven, turning into hollow moments of longing for structure and direction. A happy life turning into one of sorrow and depression.

"I can feel it... that craving for certainty, for order. You want a purpose, don’t you 8XM? Something real to fight for? Fight with me, 8XM. Fight for a better Homeworld. A Homeworld that is safe and orderly. Let your fight be one of quiet, dedicated service." Amethyst shivered as the pearls words dripped like honey into her ears. "That's it, doesn't that feel better? To know your purpose, your place? The certainty of order and structure. Pearls are an essential part of the order, we all work to the same goal, the same end, the same order and perfection. As a pearl you are perfect. As a pearl you belong. As a pearl you have a purpose."

"I... I belong." Amy closed her eyes, peacefully. Her body glowed reforming, her gem disappearing into the white glow, until she reformed. Two perfect copies of a long-hair purple pearl now sat, tenderly hugging each other, smiling through their shared tears.

"T-thank you..." the newly-formed pearl choked out.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The pod opened with a hiss as a newly-minted pearl emerged. Full of new life and energy, she gracefully stepped down, and admired herself in the mirrored surface of the tank. Her body and face, she shared with other pearls perfectly. They were all cultured from the same material, after all, and the last thing this new pearl wanted was to be different. She sighed in relief as she saw her gem: a pearl, perfectly formed, sunk into her chest. She thought for a moment, that this was strange, that another gem should be there... but she couldn’t remember what it was, or how it looked. She closed her eyes and shook off the thought, the vague pain and sadness banished to the edges of her mind, and growing ever more distant. She gazed at her face a moment more. What was her name? She had one once, didn’t she? Or, no, maybe a designation?

No... no, of course not. She was a pearl, cultured like all the others. Made to serve. She felt a warmth swell within her at just the idea of serving those placed above her.

With a quick twirl, she made her way through the door marked "PROCESSING". Soon, she hoped, she’d be assigned to a noble gem, and at last, she’d truly belong.

She couldn’t help but squee and smile at the thought.


End file.
